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Green Point ship graveyard in Bluff.
The Southland ship graveyard is located at Green Point in Bluff Harbour.
A footbridge follows the coast to the graveyard with at least 14 small ships, including the Keno, Send, County, Savai and Sir William Wallace.
This photo shows the graveyard as it was in 2006. Several of the wrecks have since collapsed and two more have been added – Miro and Rita. The three here, from left to right are: Send, County and Savai on the front.
READ MORE:
* What a hole in the bush was called
* Central block of Dee St Hospital – run down but historic
* Drifting sand – a major project for Stead St
* When the Puni was still a frozen playground
Orepuki’s platinum rush (as it was)
Gold prospectors in Orepuki were aware of a silvery contamination in the final wash that could not be separated from the fine gold.
It was platinum, heavier than gold and of little value at the time.
Little attention was paid to the discovery until it started showing up in greater quantities in the tailings of the hydraulic discharge sluices in the Round Hill field.
In 1909 there was a stampede, the only platinum stampede in New Zealand, inspired by a rumor of great mineral wealth waiting for those industrious enough to pursue it.
We all know how these things work.
‘Soprano’ wrote to the children’s page in the Otago Witness on August 28, 1909, summarizing the local news. “Because of the smelters, Orepuki is being shaken up everywhere. People are all looking for black sand and platinum. Men are also making progress on the beach. Our cow passed away about a month ago.”
The excitement died down as quickly as the cow when he realized there wasn’t much of the stuff and the tiny flakes were hard to bread out of the black sand.
A smelter was built in Orepuki, but it did not yield any money. In 1926 there was a resurgence of interest and a company called New Zealand Platinum Ltd was formed, but things also went wrong.
In 1937, when the Imperial State Crown was rebuilt as a new symbol of the Empire, it included gold from Canada and Australia, diamonds from Africa, emeralds, sapphires and diamonds from India, rubies from Burma, aquamarines from Ceylon, and platinum from New Zealand. Zealand’ – the last undoubtedly of New Zealand’s only platinum claims at Orepuki Beach.
So without Orepuki’s contribution there would have been no crown and no coronation of Her Majesty. Orepuki thus saved New Zealand from anarchy or became a republic.
Tragedy of the Western Front
On March 3, 1918, in a camp in France, near the Belgian city of Ypres, an incident took place with a Zuidland connection – called Murder on the Western Front.
A 22-year-old soldier from Riverton, a member of the Otago Battalion, had spent several months on the bloody Western Front.
Hearing that he had to return to the front line, he shot dead two of his officers – Captain Roland Hill MC from Dunedin and Lieutenant Duncan McLean MM from Lady Barkly near Winton – then shot himself in the head.
His comrades reported that he was in his normal mind earlier that morning. An investigating judge ruled that his injuries were self-inflicted and he was buried two days later in Hazebrouck municipal cemetery.
The two officers were buried in the cemetery of Hondeghem